So we did flip the service today, as you can see. And so I'm going to share with you the next couple of minutes from the Word of God. We're going to be in Luke 1:26, Luke 1:26. And I have to go ahead and forewarn you. I am going to go through this outline very quickly so you can see that there's five points.

I now know why preachers use three points, because if you go over three points, it's just a lot of time. But I think you're going to enjoy what you're going to see with these five points as we learn from. From Mary about what we need to have in our heart in response to the announcement of Jesus coming. So once you get there, if you would stand with me and we'll go ahead and read from that passage. And I want to clarify two things.

Number one, I do not take sugar in my coffee. I don't. I just. I don't. And I don't eat sugar packets.

Nor I actually looked at Brandon Fowler and said, y' all could pull off some fish donuts, couldn't you? I mean, you can kind of put those together. And secondly, I did not wear red today because Georgia won. I just wore red because it's Christmas. But I'm happy for you.

I told Caroline again. Go, Caroline. We're glad your team won. Let's read into this, shall we? Father, we love you.

Speak through us now as we focus in your word, in Jesus name. Now, in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin, engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the descendants of David. And the virgin's name was Mary. When you study the Bible, when you see a word repeated, it's important. Mary was a virgin.

She had never been with a man. Now, there's a lot of things you can die for in the faith, but that's one of them. Jesus Christ was born to a virgin, who, Mary. And coming in, he said to her, greetings, favor one, the Lord is with you. Now, the sanctified reading.

But she was very perplexed at this statement. She was scared to death and kept pondering, trying to logically figure out what kind of salutation this was. So the angel said to her, do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb, be, bear a son, and you will call his name Jesus. And why is that name great?

Because he will be called the son of El Elyon, God most High. And the Lord God Yahweh Elohim will give him the throne of his Father David. Psalm 110:1 says that Yahweh said to Adonai, sit at my right hand, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and his kingdom will have no end. Mary said to the angel, probably with a lump in her throat, how can this be since I am a virgin again? It says it three times.

The angel answered her and said, the Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Think of it like the temple being filled with the presence of God. There's nothing crude about this, nor sexual. This is not Greek mythology. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, the eternal Son of God at that moment stepped out of the portals of glory and put on human flesh.

And behold, even your relative Elizabeth has conceived a son. What's that son's name? Anybody know? John the Baptist in her old age. And she who was called barren is now in her sixth month.

She was beyond childbearing years. Why mark it, circle it, underline it? For nothing is impossible. With God in your mind today, if there's anything that's impossible, then you haven't met the God who does impossible things. And Mary said in submission, behold the bond, slave of the Lord, May it be done to me according to to your word.

And Gabriel departed. Father, be with us in Jesus name. Amen. There's a difference between making an announcement and a pronouncement. An announcement is the dispensation of information.

For example, I could tell you right now, Walmart is closed. It's not, but I'm just giving you an announcement like there's an announcement. It's just a piece of fact. A pronouncement would be a little bit different. I could say I closed Walmart.

Y' all see the difference? But we know I didn't close Walmart because I don't have authority to close Walmart. If I had authority, we wouldn't play sports on Wednesday night. No offense, but I don't. I can tell you that something is or isn't canceled, but I can't cancel that.

You see, the announcement that came to Mary was, you will bear a son. Fact. Before ultrasounds and blood tests could determine the sex of a child, before she was even pregnant, she was told, you will have a son. And the pronouncement, you will call him Jesus. Yahweh is salvation.

Yahweh saves. And what we learned last week, that when the angel appeared to Joseph in The dream, that same declaration. His name will be called Jesus. And so, as Paul is reflecting on this about how can people believe in Christ whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher?

And how will they preach unless they are sent? Just as it is written in Isaiah 52. 7. How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news unto good things. Mary received an announcement, and the pronouncement in that was to take this message to the nations.

And his name. I need you all to say, it is called what? Say it a little. Say it a little louder. Because there is salvation in no one else.

For there is no other name under heaven by which men must be saved except the name of Jesus. And we have the greatest news ever. It's more than life changing. It's life saving. My life is changed because I have been saved.

And because I have been saved, God is calling me to be changed. No different than the day he called Mary. He chose Mary out of all the women of the world at this particular time, to be the one through whom the king of the universe would come, that the eternal Son of God would step out of glory from the foundation of the world, knowing that this moment would come. She was chosen.

If I was going to choose somebody, it wouldn't be her.

For those of us that are blessed to have grown up in North Georgia, we have what's called Appalachian slang. It's funny, when we went to Scotland, there's a young lady that lives there who would imitate us, and she had it pretty close. So then we would turn it around and imitate her. I mean, it was like, you know, it was just like we were imitating people each other back and forth. But unfortunately, in our country, can we agree that people, when they hear someone talking in a Southern language, they tend to think we're ignorant.

They don't take us serious. They just think we're a bunch of country bumpkins. Galilee was the south of that area. In fact, when you get to John chapter one, you hear Nathaniel say, nothing good comes out of Galilee and Nazareth is there. Because he had heard Jesus was from Nazareth.

He's like, how can anything good come out of that?

It wasn't who I would have chosen. It wasn't who you would have chosen. In fact, I just watched through two days ago, the best Christmas pageant ever. Have y' all seen that movie? He's clapping down here.

If you haven't seen is a wonderful story. My wife actually shared with me that she started reading the book because it was published in 1972. And I was born after 1972. Just so y' all know, so was Laura. Some of you were not.

But it's a beautiful story about how the leads in the play were not who anyone would have chosen. In fact, they weren't even wanted. In fact, I have a theory about the Christmas story. Can I share my theory with you? Y' all notice that when Joseph and Mary go to Bethlehem, nobody wants them around.

The rest of their family is there. They have to be like their cousins and their aunts and their uncles are in Bethlehem. And you mean to tell me no one wanted to take them in so she could give birth to her child? You know why? Because she was labeled a certain way.

She was not wanted. And she wasn't sitting here going, you know, in my diary, God, I wish I could become the mother of the Messiah. Like, there may have been someone arrogant enough at that time to think, I will bring the Messiah into the world. Well, great for that person. She wasn't going to Padgett's to try to be eloquent and beautiful.

And so, like, you know what I am Perfection made over. God looked down and saw this young teenage woman, and he said, that's who will bring my son into the world. That's who will bring my son into the world. And she was just as confused as the rest of us would be.

She was just as caught unaware as any of us would have been. She was shocked. She was scared. Or as we say in Appalachian saying, she was skeered. S K E E R D Skeered.

You see, because here's some things that when I read this story that I need to remember in my life, as God is working in my life, as I'm following Christ with my life, things that are very important for us to know. Because she is the example or should be the example of what we should do when a pronouncement is given from our God. Look at the first one here. Number one, confusion. I don't know if any of you ever get confused, but I do on a regular basis.

Confusion is the result of interpreting the supernatural naturally, not spiritually. Interpreting the supernatural naturally, not spiritually. I mean, this is what was happening in the church, even just back in the 1980s, where people were trying to explain away the miraculous church, Jesus. That Jesus didn't walk on water, that he didn't really heal blind people, that he didn't really raise Lazarus from the dead. The only thing he did was teach good moral lessons.

And so salvation should be follow the good moral lessons, show how Good I can be. And when I stand before God, he will let me right in. But can I remind you, our righteousness is what? Filthy, stinking, rotten, soiled rags. You see, we get confused because we look around and sometimes we see God at work in some way, and then we try to explain it away because we got to make it understandable.

But do you know why you do that? Because you want to control it. You want to control it. You want to call the shots. Our flesh is no different than Adam and Eve's flesh.

That even in that moment of perfection, when they were tempted by. By Satan, they were like, wow, you mean I can eat this fruit and I can be like, God, sign me up? And we enlightened Christians think that we are better than that. On your best day, your flesh is constantly knocking at your door, and it causes confusion. The angel comes in and says, greetings, favored one.

The Lord is with you. That word favor means to be infused with grace, honored with blessing. God at that moment, in his calling of her, poured abundant grace, unmerited favor upon Mary. Unfortunately, as some denominations teach, they teach that she's better than others. She wasn't.

She wasn't. Our God is so sovereign, he could take Mary and bring forth the Son of God into the world, and that Son of God be sinless. We don't need to make Mary better than she is. What we need to do is be thankful for her, because she, at that moment when he walks into her. I'm telling you, if you were in that room and some man walked in, some stranger, I mean, we got the sanctified version, you know, that Gabriel, which means warrior of God.

Can you imagine what the warrior of God looked like? Y' all can write that down. Gabriel means warrior of God. He sent an army, person.

He probably didn't come in. In fact, he probably didn't come in glowing or with a halo over his head or any of the depictions that we see in artistry. But do you remember in Genesis 18 when the three men, the appearance of God came? Abram didn't perceive them as anything other than three men.

Gabriel comes in, and she's scared to death, probably because a man's in her room, and he says, greetings, favored one. I mean, maybe they greeted people like that. I don't greet people like that. How do you greet people? Sup?

Gabriel didn't. Come on. What's up? It says she was perplexed. And the root of that word means to be stirred up, just like when the water was stirred at the fountain in John 5, 4, or the crowds were stirred up in Acts 17:3.

And it has this prefix such that it moved through her almost like a sound wave striking you and you moving at the same time. She was scared to death and it set in confusion. So she kept pondering, imperfect in that action. What in the world is going on? Is that not what we do?

Something happens in our life and we immediately start trying to figure it out. When God is just saying, wait a minute, stop, hold on, I've got this and that. We need to trust God when He's working. Even if I can't perceive it, even if I can't figure it out, God's got it under his control. And if I try to use worldly logic, worldly ways to figure out godly and spiritual ways, I'm going to miss it every time.

Paul said in First Corinthians 2:14, But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolish to him. You've got family members who have rejected Christ. You have family members that possibly have made Jesus into something that he's not. Why? Because it doesn't make sense in the worldly sense.

But the book of First John is very, very, very clear. Jesus is the Son of God. If you believe he's the Son of God, God lives in you, and you abide in him. If you do not believe this, you know what lives inside of you. John said, the Spirit of Antichrist lives in you.

And today, if you want to dispel confusion, we gotta start at the very basic thing that this woman brought in the Son of God, ushered him into this world, and he is God and man. It's a divine mystery that we'll never, ever, ever figure out to the day we get to stand before him present. And so the lesson here is that we can avoid confusion by seeking the Spirit. It's a skill that we must hone and we must train. But it's not made by going and listening to a YouTube video.

It's made by going and spending time in prayer and the Word to hone my spiritual senses. I remember a lady came to me years ago, and I won't give you the details of what she said to me, but she made a choice that wasn't very godly. And I said, how does that line up in the Word? And she said, well, it doesn't. God just told me I could do it.

And I said, no, God, dear God, did not tell you to do that. If it doesn't line up with the revealed Word of God, to his eyewitnesses, it is not truth.

If you want to get out of confusion, then start here. Does that mean it's going to be easy? No. It may take you a little bit of work. But I'm telling you what.

When you get in the Word and you get on your knees, God produces a hunger in you like you can never imagine. Students in the room. Let me encourage you to do something. It's about to be January 1st. Get regular in your Bible study.

Read it every day, Mark. And if it's just one verse, if you're marking and crossing it and circling it and ingesting it, it will produce in you a hunger that cannot be satisfied unless you get back in it. And you need it. You need it because it's feeding your spirit. Number two, because of that.

Because we want to step out of confusion. We want to step into our calling. Calling is based on the choice of God and not on personal merit.

The angel said to her, do not be afraid, for you have found favor with God, not merit. He didn't say anything about how she earned it. She didn't sign up for it. She wasn't considered to be a candidate for it. He didn't sift it down and filter it.

Just like when God chose David. He already knew it was going to be David. He let Samuel go through the process of looking at each one of his brothers and going, nope, nope, nope, nope. Bingo. The one that's out there watching sheep, that's the one that can shepherd my people.

It was God's choice. Here Gabriel comes, and it's the same formula we read in Isaiah 7:14. You'll conceive, you will bear, and you'll give him a name. You will conceive a child. You will bring him into this world, and you will give him a name.

And today God's called us. He's called you first. He's called you to believe. He's called you to believe. God from the portals of heaven is calling to you.

And he's saying, consider your condition. Consider your sin. Consider you lost and separated from me in that sin. And I'm calling you to believe in my son. I'm calling you to trust in him fully, trust in him for your salvation.

Because there's no one else. There's no other perfect lamb that died and shed blood except Jesus Christ. And he's calling to you, and he's continuing to call to you that each one of us has a part in a ministry, and so we need to receive. This is the lesson for me. Just like Mary, she received this.

Receive the call freely with no strings attached. I don't need to think of myself more than I should. That God, you owe this to me, God, I'm better than so and so look at me. But at the same side. You don't need to sit there going, God, I'm not good enough for it.

I can't earn it. I need to get myself cleaned up, come to that place of humility in the middle that produces thankfulness to God. I know I don't deserve it, and I know I didn't earn it. And I don't want to think more than I should. But God, thank you for speaking and calling to me.

Mary didn't reason with Gabriel, but I can tell you it didn't sit well with her. She wasn't very content. And so Gabriel spoke content to her. Point 3. The content that was spoken.

This pronouncement was determined by the will of God and not the plans of men. The will of God and not the plans of men. We read in Isaiah 55, 8 for my thoughts are not your thoughts, and my ways are not your ways. There is no human being on the face of this planet that would have said, here's what I will do. Let's take the best human on the face of the planet and kill them so sin can be forgiven.

The best human being on the face of the planet probably thought to themselves, no, I need to be the ruler over everybody. Jesus said, I came not to be served, but to serve and to give my life a ransom for many. And that great God came. Here's two things we need to think about when we think about his authority. It says he will be called Great, the Son of the Most High.

Twice God is named here, El Elyon and Yahweh Elohim. And we see this kind of nod to that Psalm 110, one that even Jesus, when he was being questioned, like, how can David call his descendant his Lord? They were trying to trick Jesus when it said, Yahweh said to Adonai, how can I call my descendant my Lord? Because he's the eternal King who already existed. That is the content.

And it was determined by God's will. When John looked into heaven and he saw a. A lamb as if slain from the foundation of the world. It's that man, God that came into the world with utmost authority. And so he's not just giving a piece of information.

He's not just giving us a reason that we can exchange presents in a few weeks. He is the king of the universe, who's come to sacrifice himself so that I can have eternal life, not just a better life, not just to try to get things right, but give me life forever. Do you want that gift today? It's this One that Isaiah 9. 6 says, For a child will be born to us and a son given, and the government will rest on his shoulders, and he will be called.

Y' all know this wonderful counselor, Mighty God, ever eternal Father, Prince of Peace, Messiah, the Prince. That's who came into this world. So what's the lesson? We need to yield to his plan. Yield to his plan?

Why? Because God came up with it. Fourth point here, fourth thing I learned from Mary is that clarification comes from trusting God and not fallible logic. She said, how can this be since I'm a virgin? And he tells her that, as I mentioned when we read the text, that the Most High will overshadow you again.

It's not something sexual. It's not something crude. It's actually something very beautiful. It was like a door being opened again. When you think overshadow, think about the presence filling the temple in the Old Testament.

Overshadowing and this miracle happens. In other words, she says, in that reason, the child, the holy child, shall be called the Son of God. In other words, you didn't do it. You didn't cause it. Because if she would have caused it, if Joseph would have been his birth father, it wouldn't have worked.

It had to be the union of flesh and spirit wrought by God. And if God can take dust and pack it together and breathe life into it, then he could bring his son through the virgin birth. In fact, one scholar says this. His virgin birth resulted in assuming human nature without ever giving up his divine nature. And how did he prove that?

Well, he said, he nods to Elizabeth. Elizabeth, like Abram and Sarah, was beyond childbearing years. And he said, look, if I can make an old woman have a baby, I can bring my son into the world through you. Zechariah doubted it, too. The angel comes to Zechariah, John the Baptist's dad, while he's in the temple, and tells him, you're going to bring in a son.

You're going to name him John. Great. That's awesome. Okay, how's this going to be? And the angel said, well, I'll show you.

He wasn't as kind to John as he was Mary. He said, from this point until John gets here, you're going to not be able to speak. You're going to be mute. And that was the truth. John is born three months after this happens with Gabriel.

And they ask, what do we give him as his name? And Elizabeth says, john. And they're like, well, wait a minute, that's not a family name. That's not what you can give him. And they look to Zechariah and he's got a little tablet and he writes down the name John.

And at that moment, his tongue is loosed. Next week we're going to talk about what he says. But he didn't trust it. See, you and I, we must trust God, and not in our fallible logic. Proverbs 3, 5 and 6.

Don't lean on your own understanding. The greatest thing you can do when the world seems to be falling apart is stand on the solid rock of your faith in Jesus Christ. Last one. Confidence comes from trusting God for the impossible, not the controllable. I can tell you, if you can control it, it's going to fall, it's going to burn, it's going to get ripped right out from under you.

Why trust in that which can't last? He said to her, for nothing will be impossible with God. And at that point, she yields. She yields to those words, just like Jesus when he was engaging with the rich young ruler. And he walks away sad because he had a lot of stuff and Jesus told him to sell it.

And the people around him said, well, who then can be saved? And Jesus said, well, with man this is impossible, but with God, all things are possible. See, we can learn today from Mary. Avoid confusion by seeking to understand spiritually. Receive his call.

Like God's calling, you receive it. Yield to his plan and trust even when it doesn't make sense. If we could take those four things, at least it'll change our lives. You see, this pronouncement unwrapped means that we can have confidence in his authority. In that little movie I mentioned, the Best Christmas Pageant Ever, these ragtag group of kids ends up showing up, insists on getting the lead roles.

Imogene Herdman.

They were not wanted. Have y' all watched the movie? I cried twice. And I'm not a crier. Because they didn't want them.

In fact, the church people tried to make a way where they couldn't be in the play and set a little fire or had a fire to blame it on them so that they would get out because it didn't fit the nice little sanctified Jesus that they had always worshiped. Eight pound, six ounce. Sweet baby Jesus.

Y' all got that wrapped in gold anyway.

But here's what's moving. Because that night, the kids decide, you know what? We're done. They don't want us here. Let's leave.

Mary could have said, oh, God, I don't want this. This. I'm not worthy. I'm not good enough. I'm a Galilean.

Like, no one's going to believe that the King of the universe came through me. And so the young lady who's the narrator of this movie, after Imogene and the kids kind of run off, she decides she's the main character. Her heart changes toward them. Her mom's the director of the play. And as she's riding her bike to try to go and ask Imogene and then to come back, she says this.

Before, the only way the pageant would work was without the Herdmans. Now the only way for it to work was with them. And the only way this plan was going to work, this pronouncement that Jesus was coming, was to bring the Savior into the most unexpected person, in the most unexpected place and in the most unexpected way for you and I today. We see that same thing in our lives today. Some of you in this room, you've grown spiritually arrogant.

You think you've arrived, that you have some merit before God because of all the good things that you've done, rather than seeing the good things that you've done as a blessing of God freely bestowing it into you through His Son. And it's time to take a step back to humility. Say, God, thank you for what you've done through my life. It doesn't give us merit before God. And some of you, you've been fighting the call of God for way too long, whether in salvation or for ministry.

You keep saying I'm not good enough. I'm not smart enough. I don't have it together. People won't want me around it. Stop.

Because God can grant that favor. Who does impossible things? Say it. God does. God does impossible things.

And today, what would it look like if you and I stepped into that place? We said, you know what, God? Whatever it takes, wherever you want me to go, I am here for you. Use me. Yielded, just like Mary.

Use me. Use me. Use me. And it's not about obtaining glory for yourself, but exalting and pointing the glory back to where it goes, because people need to hear. Now, if you'd let me embellish just a few more moments, I want you to look at an image on the screen right now.

Some of you are familiar with this image, and some of you may not be, but I want you to study this for a few moments. Because we didn't create this to be this way. Over the years that we've been talking about our core values and how do we measure if we're doing our core values. Some of this just kind of came out. But I want you to study it for a moment because here's the thing.

There's 12 stones. There's 12 steps. They're all actions that we consider. Like, if I'm really in alignment with the values at Ebenezer in ministry, this is what it looks like in my life. So, for example, if you look at relationships.

Let me ask you a question. If you value relationships, what do you value in order to value relationships? People value people. If you value discipleship, what really is it that you value? Scripture?

If I value worship, what do I really value? God himself. And if I value missions, what do I value?

The Gospel. Isn't it beautiful? Isn't it simple? But now I want you to notice something. Like, if you notice how that works from left to right, like, if I value relationships, the first thing I would do is attend.

Some of you today are doing that for the first time. And the next step after attending is I begin to share. It takes a little bit more of a commitment out of my comfort zone. But then over there on that right side, which some of you may say, well, it's not hard to invite somebody, but for some people it is. But as a church, we look at that and say, okay, if somebody truly values relationships, they're moving from left to right.

Look down at worship. I come a Christian. I'm like, you know, I need to honor God with my life. So I'm gonna go buy a Bible and start reading it. Or I'm gonna start going to worship services.

I'm not just gonna attend, I'm gonna get engaged. But as you move from left to right, the next thing you start praying. And if you're praying, maybe you start praying with others. It takes a little bit more of commitment. But to give, to give of my treasure, that's a pretty extreme commitment, wouldn't you agree?

Now, I want you to notice this. If you look at all of that as it moves, I want you to look at this next image.

If I'm stepping on every stone, where does it lead me to? What does it lead to? Reach.

I grow as a disciple so I can reach somebody. I worship my God and I give so I can reach somebody. I learned to love even my enemy and serve them so I can. What Reach somebody. So therefore, in 2026, the theme upon which we're going to focus is.

Is reach. I got enough stones on here. We did invite last year. We can do this for the next decade and start over because this is what we believe is what moves us from point A to point B. If you have only attended and that's the only step that you've taken, you're really kind of still in the guest area.

In fact, Tom Raynor said this. If you only attend worship service, you are five times more likely in a year to not be here than somebody who's in a group or serving. So I'm pleading with you, not shaming you. I'm pleading with you. If that's been your pattern for the last 40 years, stop it and take a step.

Now. If you've been here for 40 years, I guess that goes against the statistic, right? But that's not the case. Statistics show if you only attend, you won't stay. And we're called to reach.

So how are we going to do that? This year? There's gonna be three things we do. I like threes. Just seems the number of perfection.

Number one, we're gonna pray. A lot of our praying has been reactive. We've been doing things. The establishment of our prayer team this year, we're gonna take it to another level. I'm inviting you right now.

I can go fill my card out. Cause I'm inviting everyone in this room the first full week of January to join us at Ebenezer for a week of prayer. And it's not easy, but I'm telling you, it's gonna be a great blessing. Monday through Friday, 6am this room's gonna be opened up and we're gonna come in here, we're gonna sing and we're gonna pray. Why?

Because we want prayer to become a part of everything that we do. Before we do an event, there's gonna be a prayer team. We're gonna start a signup where people can pray during our services. Why? Cause we want the hand of God moving in everything we do.

The other thing there is we're going to prepare. Some of you in this room would admit I couldn't tell you the gospel and if it could save my life. You may claim to be a Christian, but you can't articulate the gospel. I want that to change. This year we're going to go into February.

We're going to do a series on the gospel. Our grow groups on Wednesday night, gather groups are going to start focusing around how to teach you to articulate the gospel. Someday we're going to get to Romans and we're going to start Romans and preach it until 2049. Probably because it's the book of the gospel. Because I want us to be so passionate about the gospel that I wake up every day thinking, who needs to hear this today?

And then finally participate. And let me tell you what participate looks. Yes, you need to participate in events. But events without relationship, without discipleship, without honoring God, are meaningless. We've got a guy who, in our church, I'll leave nameless that recently helped us get an event where we went and did a project.

But he didn't stop there. He kept going back to the same place ministering to those people. Why? Because participation is more than an event. Yeah, you can sign up for Night to Shine in February and that'd be great.

But would that lead you into going and volunteer in a special needs classroom in the school? Would it involve you saying, hey, you know what? I love working. I'd love to be a shadow in anticipation that special needs families might actually start coming to our church. Participate.

Some of us, like I said at the budget vote, we need to kind of consider, okay, times have been hard, right? But the discipline of giving to the Lord, it's not so that you can fund our budget. They're two different things. We're blessed by what people give, and we can do ministry with it. But the discipline of giving is unto the Lord.

And so I give to him in anticipation that he will then bless me back for generosity. And maybe that's the step. If you look at those 12, there's a. Like Caleb said, there's a step everyone can take. What is the next step for you?

I've gone really long today. You're welcome. We are going to stand up and sing. I don't know how many songs we're going to sing. I'm thinking maybe just one.

We're going to sing 12 songs on the first day of Christmas. No, I'm just kidding. But here's my challenge as you leave today. I said today that if you and I wanted to be like Mary, this is what we would do. We would begin thinking about myself and what God's called me to do.

And who needs to hear that message. Outside in our Connect center, some of you saw a big board and that at the vision banquet, we invited people to come and sign that board if they were willing to say, you know what? I don't know exactly what pray, prepare and participate means for me individually yet, but what I want to do is I want to step in to say I'm on board for 2026. And who knows what this is going to look like in a year when we stand on this stage again and talk about what God did this year. Because people, all people, came together, unified in one mind and one accord, as it says in Acts chapter two.

And look at what happened then. The Spirit fell and great things happened. What can God do through your life this year? Father, as we go in this time of worship, Lord, touch us today. Use us in Jesus name.

Amen.